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Dilate   /daɪlˈeɪt/   Listen
Dilate

verb
(past & past part. dilated; pres. part. dilating)
1.
Become wider.  Synonym: distend.
2.
Add details, as to an account or idea; clarify the meaning of and discourse in a learned way, usually in writing.  Synonyms: elaborate, enlarge, expand, expatiate, exposit, expound, flesh out, lucubrate.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Dilate" Quotes from Famous Books



... gay, ringing laugh of the daredevil French soldier; he seemed to expand and dilate with satisfaction. It was the old story: the French trooper going about the world with his girl on his arm and a glass of good wine in his hand; thrones upset and kingdoms conquered in the singing ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola

... throne in white robes, with palms in their hands, and crowns of glory on their heads, crying-out, "Salvation to our God, which sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb!" Tell me, does not this view dilate the parent's heart, and make him thankful that he has a sainted child in heaven? Weep for those you have with you, who live under the shades of a moral death, who have entered upon a thorny pilgrimage, and are exposed to the ravages of sin; oh, weep ...
— The Christian Home • Samuel Philips

... with the miseries which the troops suffered that night, and this being the case, it would be ungracious to dilate upon the sumptuous nature of the feast within the farmhouse. Let it suffice that during its discussion the brigadier cast over the situation and was ready, with the coffee which Madam Embonpoint contributed to the entertainment, with his plan to amend the chaos which the elements had made ...
— On the Heels of De Wet • The Intelligence Officer

... I shall not dilate, gentlemen, on my amazement at the sight of such a change. And, as a matter of fact, how could that peaceable, modest lad suddenly turn into a tipsy good-for-nothing? Was it possible that all this had been concealed within him since his childhood, ...
— A Reckless Character - And Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev

... of experiment, is available to us only in the form of castration. I need not dilate on the inadequacy of this application of the experimental method, even apart from the fact that it subserves our purposes almost exclusively in respect of the male sex—for in the case of young girls, castration ...
— The Sexual Life of the Child • Albert Moll

... with a preliminary cough, lifted a voice as crude as hers, but powerful through much camp-meeting exercise, and roared a chorus which was remarkable chiefly for requiring that archness and playfulness in execution which he lacked. As the whole house seemed to dilate with the sound, and the wind outside to withhold its fury, Mr. Rylands felt that physical delight which children feel in personal outcry, and was grateful to his wife for the opportunity. Laying his hand affectionately on her shoulder, he noticed for the first ...
— Mr. Jack Hamlin's Mediation and Other Stories • Bret Harte

... speech; his swarthy countenance kindled with a satisfied expression well calculated to conceal the dark malicious plans that struggled in his breast. His very nostrils appeared to dilate with hidden exultation. ...
— Birch Bark Legends of Niagara • Owahyah

... Notably in the case of Michael Faraday, and less notably, though still conspicuously in many cases, he has bestowed much labor and sacrificed many weeks in setting forth the merits of others. It was evidently a pleasure to him to dilate on the claims of ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 12 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Scientists • Elbert Hubbard

... second time. Saba ceased howling and, turning towards the east, began to dilate his nostrils. Suddenly he barked once or twice a short, broken bass and dashed ahead. For some time he could not be heard, but soon his barking again resounded. Stas rose and, staggering on his numb legs, began ...
— In Desert and Wilderness • Henryk Sienkiewicz

... the pages of Woman's Record the roll of honor lengthens, stretching far out like the line of Banquo's phantom-kings. Their names become impressed on our memory; their acts dilate, and their whole lives grow brighter the more ...
— Woman on the American Frontier • William Worthington Fowler

... and decorum dictated silence in some circumstances, in others a prudence of a higher order would justify her in declaring her sentiments. Accordingly she withdrew from the clasping arms of Mr. Somerset, and whilst her beautiful figure seemed to dilate into more than its usual dignity, she ...
— Thaddeus of Warsaw • Jane Porter

... is incessantly obliged to refer to the data of sense or to that totality of visual, tactile, motor, acoustic, thermic, etc., representations that we term the "properties of matter." Our eye, says Tyndall, cannot see sound waves contract and dilate, but we construct them in thought—i.e., by means of visual images. The same remarks are true of chemists. The founders of the atomic theory certainly saw atoms, and pictured them in the mind's eye, and their arrangement in compound bodies. The complexity ...
— Essay on the Creative Imagination • Th. Ribot

... muscles that run round and round in the coats of the blood-vessels. When they are excited, these muscles contract and the size of the arteries is diminished: when they are paralyzed, the arterial inner muscles relax and the vessels dilate. The vaso-motor nerves have their governing centre in that upper portion of the spinal cord which is within the skull, the so-called medulla oblongata. When the spinal cord is divided, the vessels are cut off from the influence of this vaso-motor centre, and at once dilate, profoundly affecting ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 86, February, 1875 • Various

... me remind you there are other ways, subsidiary but indispensable ways, in which the Church has to discharge its function; and I put foremost amongst these, what I have already touched upon, and therefore need not dilate on now, the duty of Christians as Christians to take their full share in all the various forms of national life. I need not dwell upon the evils rampant amongst us, which have to be dealt with, and, as I believe, may best if not ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Matthew Chaps. IX to XXVIII • Alexander Maclaren

... the arrangement of the placentas, as well as that of the ovules borne on them, is also definite, and takes place according to methods explained in all the text-books, and on which, therefore, it is not necessary to dilate in ...
— Vegetable Teratology - An Account of the Principal Deviations from the Usual Construction of Plants • Maxwell T. Masters

... farmers and the country gentry became less well-to-do; the tanning, which was the local industry, suffered from a great business which had been established in a larger town, some twenty miles away, and the profits of the Nixons grew less and less. Hence the hegira of Robert, and he would dilate on the poorness of his beginnings, how he saved, by little and little, from his sorry wage of City clerk, and how he and a fellow clerk, 'who had come into a hundred pounds,' saw an opening in the coal ...
— The House of Souls • Arthur Machen

... an angel might share. The long, slender bars of cloud float like golden fishes in the crimson light. From the earth, as from a shore, I look out into the silent sea. I seem to partake its rapid transformations; the active enchantment reaches my dust, and I dilate and conspire with the morning wind. Give me health and a day and I will make the pomp of ...
— See America First • Orville O. Hiestand

... two came to a clinch. Now, thought I, it's all off with the Jam-wagon. I saw Locasto's eyes dilate with ferocious joy. He had the other in his giant arms; he could crush him in a mighty hug, the hug of a grizzly, crush him like an egg-shell. But, quick as the snap of a trap, the Jam-wagon had pinioned his arms at the elbow, ...
— The Trail of '98 - A Northland Romance • Robert W. Service

... my proneness to dilate upon this favorite theme; I may recur to it hereafter. Suffice it to say, the intimacy thus formed, continued for a considerable time; and in company with the worthy Diedrich, I visited many of the places celebrated by his pen. The currents of our lives at length diverged. ...
— Wolfert's Roost and Miscellanies • Washington Irving

... very small part of the Department of Textiles. We forbear to dilate on the courses of instruction which that department offered. We confine ...
— Stories from Everybody's Magazine • 1910 issues of Everybody's Magazine

... the right note. His father's eyes began to gleam with excitement. The scent of the footlights seemed to dilate his nostrils. ...
— Piccadilly Jim • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse

... motionless, his head inclined to the ground. Lascelles had his head forward, his mouth a little open. 'Whilst you wait you shall have with you the deeds giving to T. Culpepper his farms in Kent. These ye shall display to him. Ye shall dilate upon the goodness of the fields, upon the commodity in barns and oasthouses, upon the sweetness of the water wells, upon the goodliness of the air. But when the King shall be entered into the Lady Katharine's room you shall give T. Culpepper ...
— Privy Seal - His Last Venture • Ford Madox Ford

... what could this strange girl be doing with letters from "Dr. Chesterfield"? Even Mrs. Post watched her narrowly as she hurriedly read the lines of the doctor's elegant missive. Her eyes seemed to dilate, her color heightened and a little frown set itself darkly on her brow; but she looked up brightly after a moment's thought, and spoke kindly and ...
— 'Laramie;' - or, The Queen of Bedlam. • Charles King

... by him and peered into his face, placed his hand upon his chest above his heart, felt his pulse with awkward fingers. He wondered, now, if he had not killed him, outright, for Frank's head had struck the ground with a terrific impact. But Layson's nostrils soon began to dilate and contract with a ...
— In Old Kentucky • Edward Marshall and Charles T. Dazey

... of his Petinka, as he called him, the poor old man could never sufficiently rhapsodise and dilate. Yet when he arrived to see his son he almost invariably had on his face a downcast, timid expression that was probably due to uncertainty concerning the way in which he would be received. For a long time he would hesitate ...
— Poor Folk • Fyodor Dostoyevsky

... silence made my heart yearn toward him for the first time since I recognized him as my brother. I tried to stammer some excuse. I was glad when the darkness fell again, for the sight of his bowed head and set features was insupportable to me. It seemed to make it easier for me to talk; for me to dilate upon the purity, the goodness which had robbed me of my heart in spite of myself. My heart! It seemed a strange word to pass between us two in reference to a Poindexter, but it was the only one capable of expressing the feeling I had for this young ...
— The Circular Study • Anna Katharine Green

... sorrow-stricken mother. Then we were silent and watched. Slowly and gently the lids opened—now again we could look into those clear blue orbs. Wider—wider—and still wider they grow—uplifted, right away beyond the three forms of clay before her. See how the pupils dilate—they seem to swamp the blue! And so for a few short moments they remain. It was a gaze right beyond us to—- what! Will it be old-fashioned to suggest "Angels," perhaps! Until I grow wiser I shall hold fast to Angels. O, the mystery of ...
— Woman's Endurance • A.D.L.

... another book on my shelf on which I might dilate, but this gossiping must be drawn to a close. When I began, the wind was bending the trees, and the rain came against the window in quick, petulant dashes. For hours now, wind and rain have ceased, the trees are motionless, the garden walk is ...
— Dreamthorp - A Book of Essays Written in the Country • Alexander Smith

... they require room, and space to amplifie and expand themselves, and would therefore be planted at more remote distances, and free from all encumbrances: And this upon consideration how slowly a full-grown oak mounts upwards, and how speedily they spread, and dilate themselves to all quarters, by dressing and due culture; so as above forty years advance is to be gain'd by this only industry: And, if thus his Majesties forests and chases were stor'd, viz. with this spreading tree at handsom intervals, by which grazing might be improv'd for ...
— Sylva, Vol. 1 (of 2) - Or A Discourse of Forest Trees • John Evelyn

... destructive explosion never happens. The Californian is easy-going in a sense and yet he works hard and plays hard. Athletics are feverish there, suffrage rampant, politics frenzied, labor militant. Would that I had space here to dilate on the athletic game as it is played in California—played with the charm and spirit and humor with which Californians play every game. Would that I had space to narrate, as Maud Younger tells it—the ...
— The Californiacs • Inez Haynes Irwin

... binding force of the law that makes him merchandise. Nevertheless, while the negro feels them in all their force, the master values them only in an abstract light. Ask the negro whose master is kind to him, if he would prefer his freedom and go north?-At first he will hesitate, dilate upon his master's goodness, his affection for him, the kindly feeling evinced for him by the family-they often look upon him with a patriarchal tenderness-and, finally, he will conclude by telling you he wishes master and missus would live for ever. He tells you, in the very simplicity ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams

... and artists, determined to make the most while it lasted of this unique opportunity. And since the subject of self, with an attentive listener, is always an attractive one, even to modest young men like Cyril Waring—especially when it's a pretty girl who encourages you to dilate upon it—why, the consequence was, that before many minutes were over, the handsome young man was discoursing from his full heart to a sympathetic soul about his chosen art, its hopes and its ideals, accompanied, by a running fire of thumb-nail illustrations. He had even got ...
— What's Bred In the Bone • Grant Allen

... is aided by one or two Complemental Males. The complemental and simple males closely resemble each other, as do the female and hermaphrodite forms; but under the two following species I enter into such full and minute details on these remarkable facts, that I will not here dilate on them. I may add that, at the end of the genus Scalpellum, I give a summary of the facts, and discuss the whole question. The penis (Pl. IV, fig. 9 a) in the hermaphrodite, I. quadrivalvis, is singular, from the length of its unarticulated support, and from the distinctness ...
— A Monograph on the Sub-class Cirripedia (Volume 1 of 2) - The Lepadidae; or, Pedunculated Cirripedes • Charles Darwin

... man of iron will could have accomplished all he did. And here let me say, that although he was accustomed to talk and write a great deal about eating and drinking, I have rarely seen a man eat and drink less. He liked to dilate in imagination over the brewing of a bowl of punch, but I always noticed that when the punch was ready, he drank less of it than any one who might be present. It was the sentiment of the thing and not the thing itself that engaged his attention. He liked to have ...
— Yesterdays with Authors • James T. Fields

... power, some details of the great disaster—how dwellings and barns and stores had been swept away, and property wrecked everywhere, though, through the mercy of God, no lives had been lost. All this, and a great deal more, did Elsie and Cora and Mrs Ravenshaw dilate upon, until Ian almost ...
— The Red Man's Revenge - A Tale of The Red River Flood • R.M. Ballantyne

... to dilate on the splendid German East-African line of steamers, which conveyed one for a mere trifle from Hamburg to Naples, by way of Antwerp, Oporto, and Lisbon, and he enlarged at great length on the educational influence of long journeys in general ...
— 'Jena' or 'Sedan'? • Franz Beyerlein

... dilate upon the pure, bubbling milk of human kindness, and Christian charity, and forgiveness of injuries which pervade this charming document, so thoroughly imbued, as a Christian code, with the benignant spirit of the Sermon on the Mount. But as it is very nearly alike in the foremost ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville

... shew it to me.'—These words, from the experience of his sagacity, never failed to inspire me with hope of success. It was then sketched. Sometimes, when I was fond of a particular part, I used to dilate on it in the sketch; but to this he always objected—'I don't want any of your painting—none of your drapery!—I can imagine all that—let me see ...
— De Libris: Prose and Verse • Austin Dobson

... vaulted low place) the various nations have their assigned quarters, and we drink our coffee and strong waters, and abuse Guido, or Rubens, or Bernini selon les gouts, and blow such a cloud of smoke as would make Warrington's lungs dilate with pleasure. We get very good cigars for a bajoccho and half—that is very good for us, cheap tobaccanalians; and capital when you have got no others. M'Collop is here: he made a great figure at a cardinal's reception in the tartan of the M'Collop. He is splendid ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray

... spake: 'Yea, and in heaven itself, a hierarchy There is that glories in the name of "Thrones:" The high cherubic knowledge is not theirs; Not theirs the fiery flight of Seraph's love, But all their restful beings they dilate To make a single, myriad throne for God— Children, abide in unity and love! So shall your lives be one long Pentecost, Your hearts one throne for God!' As thus he spake A breeze, wide-wandering through the woodlands near, Illumed ...
— Legends of the Saxon Saints • Aubrey de Vere

... said Pelle. "Will you or won't you?" He was red with excitement and the exertion, and the perspiration already stood in beads down his slender back, for he had worked with a will. "Will you or won't you? Seventy-five strokes then!" Pelle's voice quivered with eagerness, and he had to dilate his nostrils to get air enough; his limbs began ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo

... my purpose to dilate upon the sorrow and affectionate emotions of which I was at once the witness and the sharer. But I may say, of the humbler mourners, that his faithful housekeeper was fairly heart-broken; that the poor ...
— Master Humphrey's Clock • Charles Dickens

... brothers, exposed themselues with inuincible courages to the manifest hazard of their persons, liues, and liuings, leauing their ease, their countries, wiues and children; induced with a Zelous deuotion and ardent desire to protect and dilate the Christian faith. These memorable enterprises in part concealed, in part scattered, and for the most part vnlooked after, I haue brought together in the best Method and breuitie that I could deuise. Whereunto I haue annexed ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries - Vol. II • Richard Hakluyt

... pulse is not due to the active dilatation of their walls, but to their passive distention by the blood which is forced into them at each beat of the heart; reversing Galen's dictum, he says that they dilate as bags and not as bellows. This point of fundamental, practical as well as theoretical, importance is most admirably demonstrated, not only by experiment, ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 11 • Various

... missed, Who cares if rage or folly gave the twist? When Ajax falls with fury on the fold, He shows himself a madman, let us hold: When you, of purpose, do a crime to gain A meed of empty glory, are you sane? The heart that air-blown vanities dilate, Will medicine say 'tis in its normal state? Suppose a man in public chose to ride With a white lambkin nestling at his side, Called it his daughter, had it richly clothed, And did his best to get it well betrothed, The ...
— The Satires, Epistles, and Art of Poetry • Horace

... done and talked of that afternoon at the Parsonage. First, there was a long lesson to be given to little Ailie; then, at least an hour was spent in following Mrs. Gwynne round the garden, and hearing her dilate on the beauty of her ...
— Olive - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik, (AKA Dinah Maria Mulock)

... painter, or at least a designer. He was first of all to draw the outline of the subject which he intended to write upon, and afterwards conform the description to the figure of his subject. The poetry was to contract or dilate itself according to the mould in which it was cast. In a word, the verses were to be cramped or extended to the dimensions of the frame that was prepared for them; and to undergo the fate of those persons whom the tyrant Procrustes used to ...
— Essays and Tales • Joseph Addison

... American system,—manifestly the weak point, and to those who, like myself, have had occasion to know, undeniably so. I am here as a publicist; not as a writer of memoirs: so, on this head, I do not now propose to dilate or bear witness. I will only briefly say that having at one period, and for more than the lifetime of a generation, been in charge of large corporate and financial interests, I have had much occasion to deal with ...
— 'Tis Sixty Years Since • Charles Francis Adams

... our meetings to be used as love trysts. There was a certain episode two years ago—Gaston de Barres and Felise Rivaz—you remember it? Ah, I thought so! Then let it be a warning—in the future you will be suspected and watched. There is no need for me to dilate upon the punishment for treachery, all that you knew when you joined us. You may consider yourself lucky to have escaped so easily to-night. Through the few minutes' delay you have caused, Poleski may have ...
— The Hippodrome • Rachel Hayward

... could with haste despatch, She'd come again, and with a greedy ear Devour up my discourse; which I observing Took once a pliant hour; and found good means To draw from her a prayer of earnest heart, That I would all my pilgrimage dilate Whereof by parcels she had something heard, But not intentively; I did consent; And often did beguile her of her tears, When I did speak of some distressful stroke That my youth suffered. My story being done She gave me for my pains ...
— Shakspere, Personal Recollections • John A. Joyce

... While Power continued to dilate upon the delights of a soldier's life—a theme which many a boyish dream had long since made hallowed to my thoughts—I gradually felt my enthusiasm rising, and a certain throbbing at my heart betrayed to me that, sad and dispirited as I felt, there was still within that buoyant spirit ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 1 (of 2) • Charles Lever

... theory. The connection of such theories with purely physical facts is given by the experience that an electrical stimulation of the nerve may have the same influence as ideas. The electric current, too, can regulate the beat of the heart, or contract and dilate the vessels, or reenforce and relax the contraction of the muscles, or strengthen and weaken the ...
— Psychotherapy • Hugo Muensterberg

... that she possessed remarkable talent, but I have been favored with no exhibition of it. Why do you not question your brother? Doubtless it would afford him much pleasure to furnish an inventory of her charms and accomplishments, and dilate upon them ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson

... She provided against him in the manner she thought most efficacious: that is, by cheating her eyes and intoxicating her conscience with the due and proper glories incident to weddings where fathers dilate, mothers collapse, and marriage settlements are flourished on high by the family lawyer: and had there been no show of the kind to greet her on her return from the church, she would, and she foresaw she would, have stared at squalor and emptiness, and ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... unnecessary to dilate on the appointment of senators by the State legislatures. Among the various modes which might have been devised for constituting this branch of the government, that which has been proposed by the convention is probably the most congenial with the public opinion. It is recommended by the double ...
— The Federalist Papers • Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison

... other end of the porch, hoping thus to put an end to the scene which was a sore trial of his temper. A flash of joy lighted up the tawny eyes of the brute-tamer. The white circle, which surrounded the pupil seemed to dilate. He ran his crooked fingers two or three times through his yellow beard, in token of satisfaction; then he advanced slowly towards the soldier, accompanied by several idlers ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue

... a profession I have lost most of the interest I had in literature as literature pure and simple. That interest gradually faded and "Art for Art's sake," in the sense the simple in studios are wont to dilate upon, touches me no more, or very, very rarely. The books I love now are those which teach me something actual about the living world; and it troubles me not at all if any of them betray no sense of beauty and lack immortal words. ...
— A Tramp's Notebook • Morley Roberts

... Mountain rills, gushing rivulets, and murmuring waters! Here they were in abundance, rolling down the rocky mountains from unknown heights, and lending an additional charm to the landscape! Is it necessary to dilate on such beauties?—for if words were conjured in the most delicate and exquisite language imaginable, the glories of Loch Ness and its surroundings are, after all, things to be seen before they can be fully appreciated. ...
— From John O'Groats to Land's End • Robert Naylor and John Naylor

... which so much the more dilate As higher they ascend, had been by Indians Among their forests marvelled at ...
— Dante's Purgatory • Dante

... dilatation &c (expansion) 194; increment, accretion; accession &c 37; development, growth; aggrandizement, aggravation; rise; ascent &c 305; exaggeration exacerbation; spread &c (dispersion) 73; flood tide; gain, produce, product, profit. V. increase, augment, add to, enlarge; dilate &c (expand) 194; grow, wax, get ahead. gain strength; advance; run up, shoot up; rise; ascend &c 305; sprout &c 194. aggrandize; raise, exalt; deepen, heighten; strengthen; intensify, enhance, magnify, redouble; aggravate, exaggerate; exasperate, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget

... to breathe the brilliance of that mystical sunlight and to dilate and tower, so that the child looked up to a giant pillar of light, having in his heart a sun of ruddy gold which shed its blinding rays about him, and over his head there was a waving of fiery plumage and on his face an ecstasy of beauty ...
— Imaginations and Reveries • (A.E.) George William Russell

... there till the blue that overskied us Swooned with passion, though the footing seemed sedate; And the mountains, heaving mighty hearts beside us, Sighed a rapture in a shadow, to dilate, And touch the holy stone ...
— The Poetical Works of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Volume IV • Elizabeth Barrett Browning

... is unnecessary to dilate upon the marvelous and winning pictures of life in Lichfield before the War between the States which Charteris has painted in his novels. "Even as the king of birds that with unwearied wing soars nearest to the sun, yet ...
— The Rivet in Grandfather's Neck - A Comedy of Limitations • James Branch Cabell

... directed toward her. An odor of food filled the air, causing nostrils to dilate, mouths to water, and jaws to contract painfully. The scorn of the ladies for this disreputable female grew positively ferocious; they would have liked to kill her, or throw, her and her drinking cup, her basket, and her provisions, out of ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant

... nevertheless, continued successfully to combat the indiscreet violence of the most sanguine, and, I soon found that, by dint of reason and argument, I had prevailed upon the great majority to agree with me. I then took occasion to dilate upon the consequences that must have followed the taking the life of a fellow creature, without the intervention of judge or jury. I was instantly answered, that their opponents had taken the lives of a great ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 2 • Henry Hunt

... continued she. "I am punished by God there where my sins were committed, for the great joys that I feel dilate my heart, and have, according to the Arabian doctor, weakened the vessels which in a moment of excitement will burst; but I have always implored God to take my life at the age in which I now am, because I would not see my charms marred ...
— Droll Stories, Complete - Collected From The Abbeys Of Touraine • Honore de Balzac

... constitutions. Its clear air is the subject of eulogy. Its dainty springs of sweet water are praised not only by Higginson and Wood, but even the mischievous Morton says, that for its delicate waters "Canaan came not near this country." There is a tendency to dilate on these simple blessings, which reminds one a little of the Marchioness in Dickens's story, with her orange-peel-and-water beverage. Still more does one feel the warmth of coloring,—such as we ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... above threepence, and as often as not grovelling on the earth a penny lower, he yet represented the present writer as a large holder of Consols, a lender of money on mortgage, a Capitalist. He has been overheard to dilate to other customers on the allegation that the present writer put out thousands of pounds at interest in Distilleries and Breweries. "Well, Christopher," he would say (having grovelled his lowest on the earth, half a moment ...
— Somebody's Luggage • Charles Dickens

... devices for the physical advantage of mankind. He set up a steam corn mill in Hereford, which I believe worked very successfully for the supply of pure flour to his parishioners, and he had theories about the production of pigs and poultry upon which he could dilate with amusing fervour. He showed his principles in a public disputation with a Roman Catholic priest at Hereford. I do not know that either of them converted anybody; but John Venn's loveableness was not dependent upon dialectical ...
— The Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Bart., K.C.S.I. - A Judge of the High Court of Justice • Sir Leslie Stephen

... a wrong scent on which I employed you. The arms I have impaled were certainly not Boleyn's. You lament removal of friends -alas! dear Sir, when one lives to our age, one feels that in a higher degree than from their change of place! but one must not dilate those common moralities. You see by my date I have changed place myself. I am got into an excellent, comfortable, cheerful house; and as, from necessity and inclination, I live much more at home than I used to do, it is very agreeable to be so pleasantly lodged, and to be in a warm inn ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole

... enjoyed it with a keen and intense delight. Nowhere else did her soul so entirely unfold to the genial light of this new sun which had suddenly mounted above her horizon. Nowhere else did the freshness and fulness and splendor of life dilate her whole being with a ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... shaped-out an answer; and either in the authentic lineaments of Fact, or the forged ones of Fiction, a complete picture and Genetical History of the Man and his spiritual Endeavour lies before you. But why,' says the Hofrath, and indeed say we, 'do I dilate on the uses of our Teufelsdroeckh's Biography? The great Herr Minister von Goethe has penetratingly remarked that "Man is properly the only object that interests man": thus I too have noted, that in Weissnichtwo our whole conversation is little or nothing else but Biography ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle

... are intermittently noted during bronchoscopy. It is readily observed that the bronchi elongate and expand during inspiration while during expiration they shorten and contract. The bronchoscopist must learn to work in spite of the fact that the bronchi dilate, contract, elongate, shorten, kink, and are dinged and pushed this way and that. It is this resiliency and movability that make bronchoscopy possible. The inspiratory enlargement of lumen opens up the forceps spaces, and the facile bronchoscopist ...
— Bronchoscopy and Esophagoscopy - A Manual of Peroral Endoscopy and Laryngeal Surgery • Chevalier Jackson

... convenient vehicle which can be kept; but as that would not be suitable for a lady, we contrived to make the back seat of the carriage do duty for the well of the dog-cart, and it was astonishing how many light packages we managed to "stow away" in it. I will not dilate on the pleasant drives through quiet lanes, of the delight afforded to the children when allowed to have a ride on "Bobby," nor of the great facility it gave us of being out of doors in winter, when, as was ...
— Our Farm of Four Acres and the Money we Made by it • Miss Coulton

... over the merits of a war-time leader, known well to men of the Union Army east or west; the general declaiming, the junior listening, unconvinced. It was one point on which they differed widely, one on which the general was apt to dilate when warmed by wine. He had had only moderate aid from Willett in disposing of two bottles of sound old claret, and one was enough to set the garrulous tongue to wagging. He would not cease at sight of Harris, standing ...
— Tonio, Son of the Sierras - A Story of the Apache War • Charles King

... in brief space, agonies of disappointment commensurate with his unpreparedness and confidence. And I thought, thus thrown back on the representing pictorial resources I supposed him originally to possess, with such material, and the need he must feel of using it, such a man would suddenly dilate into a form of Pride, Power, and Glory,—a centre, round which asking, aimless hearts might rally,—a man fitted to act as interpreter to the one ...
— Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Vol. I • Margaret Fuller Ossoli

... disturbed by the necessity of talking, to be the possessor of all the rich marshes we see yonder. In this interval there is neither storm nor sunshine of the mind, but calm and (as the farmer would call it) growing weather, in which the blades of thought spring up and dilate insensibly. Whatever I do, I must do in the open air, or in the silence of night: either is sufficient: but I prefer the hours of exercise, or, what is next to exercise, of field-repose. Did you happen ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor

... and unruly; but there is a horse, and Susan will make you excellent birch rods whenever you require them. If you spare their bottoms when they deserve whipping, you will seriously offend me." As mamma said this, I observed Miss Evelyn's eyes appeared to dilate with a sort of joy, and I felt certain that, severely as mamma had often whipped us, if we should now deserve it, Miss Evelyn would administer it much more severely. She looked amiability itself, and was truly beautiful in face and person, twenty-two years ...
— The Romance of Lust - A classic Victorian erotic novel • Anonymous

... which shadow forth and yet hide the fate of those who cause the feeblest disciple to stumble, are not for us to dilate upon. Jesus saw the realities of future retribution, and deliberately declares that death is a less evil than such an act. The 'little ones' are sacred because they are His. The same relation to Him which made kindness to them so worthy of reward, ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Mark • Alexander Maclaren

... lives were lost.* The ground was in one place rent a quarter of a mile, the width of two fathoms, and depth of four or five. A bituminous matter is described to have swelled over the sides of the cavity, and the earth for a long time after the shocks was observed to contract and dilate alternately. Many parts of the hills far inland could be distinguished to have given way, and a consequence of this was that during three weeks Manna River was so much impregnated with particles of clay that ...
— The History of Sumatra - Containing An Account Of The Government, Laws, Customs And - Manners Of The Native Inhabitants • William Marsden

... chorus effects in tragedy. It is in itself, not an individual but a general conception; yet it is represented by a palpable body which appeals to the senses with an imposing grandeur. It forsakes the contracted sphere of the incidents to dilate itself over the past and the future, over distant times and nations, and general humanity, to deduce the grand results of life, and pronounce the lessons of wisdom. But all this it does with the full power of fancy—with a bold lyrical freedom which ascends, as with godlike ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller

... here himself. You must find him quarters where he will have a merry time and everything heart can wish, and I will offer him work which he will like far better than going back. And do you talk to him yourself, and dilate on all the wonders we expect for our friends if things go well. And when you have done this, come back again and ...
— Cyropaedia - The Education Of Cyrus • Xenophon

... Dale's eyes dilate; he saw the faces of the men in the group of riders change color; he saw their hands go slowly upward. Dale, too, raised ...
— Square Deal Sanderson • Charles Alden Seltzer

... it's a most honorable wound. You will be able to dilate upon the desperate capture of the noted ruffian the Red Captain, and how you and that noble officer Captain O'Connor dashed alone into the cavern, tenanted by thirteen notorious desperadoes. Why, properly worked up, man, there is no end of capital to be made out of ...
— One of the 28th • G. A. Henty

... a work of art produced in the presence of an eminent cold-water pourer. He did not deny that it was beautiful; but he instantly fastened upon a small crack in it that nobody had observed; and upon that crack he would dilate whenever the work was discussed in his presence. Indeed, he did not see the work, but only the crack in it. That flaw,—that little flaw,—was all in all ...
— McGuffey's Fifth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey

... descended on the world. If evening had paused while that meal was in progress it would not have surprised me. There are half hours that dilate to the importance of centuries. But when she had encouraged me to eat everything to the last crumb, she shook the fringed napkin, gathered up the lacquered box, and ...
— Lazarre • Mary Hartwell Catherwood

... close at his heels; he had clicked his answering signal, seized a pencil, and was rapidly taking down a message. They saw his eyes dilate and his lips quiver with suppressed excitement. Once, indeed, he made an impulsive reach with his hand, as if to touch the key and shut off the message and interpose some idea of his own, but ...
— Starlight Ranch - and Other Stories of Army Life on the Frontier • Charles King

... a State. In Publick Dangers Laws are unsecure, As strongest Anchors can't all Winds endure; Though 'tis in Exigents the wisest Ease To know who best can ply when Storms encrease; Whilst other Prospects, by mistaking Fate, Through wrong Preventions, more its Bad dilate. Whence some their Counter-Politicks extend, To ruine such can Evils best amend. A Thwarting Genius, which our Nation more Than all its head-strong Evils does deplore; And shews what violent Movements such inform, That where a Calm should be, they force a Storm; As if their Safety chiefly ...
— Anti-Achitophel (1682) - Three Verse Replies to Absalom and Achitophel by John Dryden • Elkanah Settle et al.

... used by both sides among us, to fix the guilt on each other; 'tis certain, that, in the sense of the law, the schism lies on that side which opposes itself to the religion of the state. I leave it among the divines to dilate upon the danger of schism, as a spiritual evil, but I would consider it only as a temporal one. And I think it clear that any great separation from the established worship, though to a new one that is more pure ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. III.: Swift's Writings on Religion and the Church, Vol. I. • Jonathan Swift

... to dilate upon the excellence of the dinner, to repeat the dialogue, or to comment on the service, other than to say, for the sake of record, that the first WAS excellent; the second sprightly, and the ...
— Green Fancy • George Barr McCutcheon

... the names of things. Smell is a potent wizard that transports us across a thousand miles and all the years we have lived. The odour of fruits wafts me to my Southern home, to my childish frolics in the peach orchard. Other odours, instantaneous and fleeting, cause my heart to dilate joyously or contract with remembered grief. Even as I think of smells, my nose is full of scents that start awake sweet memories of summers gone and ...
— The World I Live In • Helen Keller

... incomparable by two friends, who had the good fortune to drop in to dinner yesterday, but I must not mix up my cook's praises with my acknowledgments; let me but have leave to say that she and we did your pig justice. I should dilate on the crackling—done to a turn—but I am afraid Mrs. Clarkson, who, I hear, is with you, will set me down as an Epicure. Let it suffice, that you have spoil'd my appetite for boiled mutton for some time to come. Your brother Henry partook of the cold relics—by ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb (Vol. 6) - Letters 1821-1842 • Charles and Mary Lamb

... the sky; Instant invisible to mortal eye. Then first he recognized the ethereal guest; Wonder and joy alternate fire his breast; Heroic thoughts, infused, his heart dilate; Revolving much his father's doubtful fate. At length, composed, he join'd the suitor-throng; Hush'd in attention to the warbled song. His tender theme the charming lyrist chose. Minerva's anger, and the dreadful woes Which voyaging from Troy the victors bore, While storms ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer, translated by Alexander Pope

... with an object- lesson, producing the great grape cluster and the other spoils. But while honesty compelled the acknowledgment of the fertility of the land, cowardice slurred that over as lightly as might be, and went on to dilate on the terrors of the giants and the strength of the cities, and the crowded population that held every corner of the country. Truly, the eye sees what it brings with it. They really had gone to look for dangers, and of course they found them. ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers • Alexander Maclaren

... reports of the archbishop and the friars—for, as soon as they said anything against the latter, they were immediately checked, and what was set down in the document was moderated; but if it was anything in favor of them, the examiner heard it at much length, and employed his rhetoric to dilate upon it very extensively. He very soon gave orders that Captain Lerma (who took the place of Armenta, the secretary of the Audiencia, who was banished to Pangasinan) and Sargento-mayor Juan Sanchez (who was secretary of that court in the ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898—Volume 39 of 55 • Various

... and Miss Fetters were confirmed by a number of circumstances which I need not describe. That he should treat his wife in a harsh, ironical manner, which the poor woman felt, but could not understand, did not surprise me; but at other times there was a treacherous tenderness about him. He would dilate eloquently upon the bliss of living in accordance with the spiritual harmonies. Among us, he said, there could be no more hatred or mistrust or jealousy,—nothing but love, pure, unselfish, perfect love. "You, my dear," (turning to Mrs. Stilton,) "belong to a sphere which is included within ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, No. 38, December, 1860 • Various

... who has eloped without so much as an adieu to you! Depend upon it, Jews though they are, they will applaud your Christian forgiveness, and, I do not doubt, Frenchman though he is, young Clemenceau will give you his hand. Dilate not at all, but urge him to leave the town without delay. From the maid I will get to know the hour of the chaise's starting and the route so that you can plant your men. I grant that this has the air of a highwayman's attack, but, after all, the uniform covers a host of civil sins, and, really, ...
— The Son of Clemenceau • Alexandre (fils) Dumas

... dilate upon the sufferings which, according to themselves, this displacement must cause. They exaggerate and amplify them; they make of them the principal subject of discussion; they present them as the exclusive and definite result of reform, and thus try to enlist you ...
— Sophisms of the Protectionists • Frederic Bastiat

... solitary eye widen and dilate as it took in the man before him, the spare form, the keen, aquiline face with its black brows, ...
— Martin Conisby's Vengeance • Jeffery Farnol

... that moment he had caught no sound from her. Had she heard, did she know anything of what was happening—that the yacht was now turned homeward? He dared not linger on the thought. The prince was watching him with eyes that seemed to dilate and contract. A moment's carelessness, the briefest cessation of watchfulness would be at once seized upon by his excellency, enabling him to shift the advantage. The young man met ...
— A Man and His Money • Frederic Stewart Isham

... deep sea green and occupys one third of the diameter of the eye, the iris is of a bright yellowish silver colour. the ears are placed far back on the head and very near each other, they are flexable and the animal moves them with great ease and quickness, and can dilate and throw them forward, or contract and fold them on his back at pleasure. the fold of the front of the ear is of a redish brown colour, the inner folds or those which lie together when the ears are thrown back, and ...
— The Journals of Lewis and Clark • Meriwether Lewis et al

... stately form of the Norman appeared to dilate in magnitude, like that of the eagle, which ruffles up its plumage when about to pounce on its defenceless prey. He paused within three steps of the corner in which the unfortunate Jew had now, as it were, coiled himself up into the smallest possible space, and made ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott

... kept together by two things—reward and punishment. Of course there is a certain moderation to be observed in both, as in everything else, and what we may call a golden mean in both these things. But I have no intention to dilate on such an important ...
— Letters of Cicero • Marcus Tullius Cicero

... | check the liberality of God's gifts, who, | as was said, | HATH SET THE WORLD IN MAN'S HEART. So | as whatsoever is not God but parcel of the | world, he hath fitted it to the | comprehension of man's mind, if man will | open and dilate the powers of | his understanding as he may.{39} | 39. Compare to "mind of glass" above | But yet evermore it must be remembered | that the least part of knowledge passed to | man by this so large a charter from God | must be subject to that use for which God | hath granted ...
— Valerius Terminus: of the Interpretation of Nature • Sir Francis Bacon

... and the next few stanzas which dilate it, might be a translation from Dante's "Paradiso," so broad, terse, vivid, the painter's touch. Hints, too, of a humour, which, like that of Shakespeare, rises at times by sheer depth of insight into the sublime; ...
— Literary and General Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley

... not answer a word. What answer can he make? He still stands under the wintry tree, white to lividness; drops of cold sweat stand on his brows; and his fine nostrils dilate and contract, dilate and contract, in an agony of ...
— Nancy - A Novel • Rhoda Broughton

... said that a true significance is achieved in proportion to the number of concerting themes. We might dilate on the sheer inability of the hearer to grasp a clear outline in such ...
— Symphonies and Their Meaning; Third Series, Modern Symphonies • Philip H. Goepp

... Wylie, are unduly thin-skinned. The only criticism I would make on Sir Hamar Greenwood's idea of a joke is that he appears to suggest that it would have been less funny if the Black-and-Tans had done the judge some harm. I should have expected him rather to dilate on the attractions of life in the Irish police force for men with a sense of humour. Suppose the judge had been robbed of his watch, or had had his front teeth broken with the muzzle of a revolver like the University Professor at Cork, would not that have made the incident still funnier? ...
— The Pleasures of Ignorance • Robert Lynd

... with that generally used in America, the sugar and cream are no doubt necessary to drown the "twang." A Chinaman would put this practice on a par with putting sugar in Chateau Lafitte. Tea is the wine of the Celestial. A mandarin will "talk" it to you as a gourmet talks wine with us; dilate upon its quality and flavor, for the grades are innumerable, and taste and sip and sip and taste as your winebibber does—and smack his lips too. We are told of teas so delicate in flavor that fifty ...
— Round the World • Andrew Carnegie

... and did his best to dilate on work that now seemed of a minor character. There was that about Clark which curiously ...
— The Rapids • Alan Sullivan

... spoke she waved her hands twice or thrice over the old woman. In doing this her figure seemed to dilate, and her countenance underwent a marked and fearful change. All her beauty vanished, her eyes blazed, and terror sat on her wrinkled brow. The hag, on the contrary, crouched lower down, and seemed to dwindle less than her ordinary size. Writhing as from heavy blows, ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth

... is cheated out of its rectitude, following this grave delight, and seems to dilate and grow dreamy in the cool shade of imaginative cloisters and groves, the wanton joyousness of Life, with its long waving lily-stems and the luscious pending of vines, comes with dim recollections into the mind, but modified by a certain habitual chastity ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 44, June, 1861 • Various

... The sailors, rejoicing in the largesses of the admiral, were heard murmuring their slow and artless songs. Sometimes, the grinding of the chains was mixed with the dull noise of shot falling into the holds. These harmonies, and this spectacle, oppress the heart like fear, and dilate it like hope. All this life speaks of death. Athos had seated himself with his son, upon the moss, among the brambles of the promontory. Around their heads passed and repassed large bats, carried along in the fearful whirl ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas

... above a whisper, seemed to dilate to the limit of the room. Arment looked toward the door; then his embarrassed glance returned ...
— The Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton, Part 2 (of 10) • Edith Wharton

... conversion of the Yogi. It is amusing for a moment to imagine these two Western barbarians sitting with the emaciated saint on the ledge in front of the cave. Thinking to win his sympathy, they tell him that on one point they are all agreed. The Brahman's eyes would dilate; how can this thing be? his eyes would seem to ask, and it is easy to imagine how contemptuously he would raise his eyes when he gathered gradually from their discourse that his visitors believed that chastity was incumbent upon all men. "But all men are not the same," he would answer, ...
— Memoirs of My Dead Life • George Moore

... qualities of the Sirdar that he has been able to direct the races that are under him, to make them effective and loyal soldiers, to attach them to himself, and insure their good conduct in the field of battle. [Cheers.] He has many other qualities upon which I might dilate if time permitted. Lord Cromer, who I am glad to see Lord Rosebery noted as one who ought to have his full share in any honors you confer on those who have built up Egyptian prosperity, who is one of the finest administrators the British race has ever produced—Lord Cromer ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol III, After-Dinner Speeches P-Z • Various

... she said, and looked as if for calming over Alicia's shoulder away into the after-sunset bars along the sky. The colour sank back out of her face, and the light from the window rested on it ethereally. The beautiful mystery drew her eyes to seek, and their blue seemed to deepen and dilate, as if the old splendour of the ...
— Hilda - A Story of Calcutta • Sara Jeannette Duncan

... to dilate as she answered him. Her feet were firmly planted upon the ground. There was a new look in her face, a look of decision. She was more or less a coward but she felt no fear. She even leaned a little towards him and looked ...
— The Cinema Murder • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... but what could more awe the mind with the power of God? Of like nature is the conjecture of Newton, when he imagined stars so distant from the sun that their coeval light has not yet reached us. Let us endeavour for one moment to conceive of this; does not the soul seem to dilate within us, and the body to shrink as to a grain of dust? "Woe is me! unclean, unclean!" said the holy Prophet, when the Infinite Holiness stood before him. Could a more terrible distance be measured, than by these fearful words, between ...
— Lectures on Art • Washington Allston

... agreement such as I have signed, and these men have signed—and I don't believe that you will refuse. It is either that, which means full liberty, plenty of money, a life which is never monotonous, often amusing, and sometimes dangerous; or an alternative which I really won't dilate on." ...
— The Iron Pirate - A Plain Tale of Strange Happenings on the Sea • Max Pemberton

... young man was told to think of himself as managing a side-show at a circus. When his mind had absorbed this idea he was ordered to open his exhibition. He at once mounted a table, and, in the voice of the traditional side-show fakir, began to dilate upon the fat woman and the snakes, upon the wild man from Borneo, upon the learned pig, and all the other accessories of side-shows. He went over the usual characteristic "patter," getting more and more in earnest, assuring his hearers that ...
— Complete Hypnotism: Mesmerism, Mind-Reading and Spiritualism • A. Alpheus

... the surface of the substratum. Two of these threads come into close contact through a considerable length, and clasp each other by alternate protuberances and depressions. Some of the protuberances are prolonged into slender tubes. At the same time the free extremities of the threads dilate, and arch over one towards the other until their tops touch like a vice, each limb of which rapidly increases in size. Each of these arcuate, clavate cells has now a portion of its extremity isolated by a partition, by means of which a new hemispherical cell is formed at the end of each thread ...
— Fungi: Their Nature and Uses • Mordecai Cubitt Cooke

... "turned outward, and working upon the world which surrounds us." Outward radiation constitutes health; a too continuous concentration upon what is within brings us back to vacuity and blank. It is better that life should dilate and extend itself in ever-widening circles, than that it should be perpetually diminished and compressed by solitary contraction. Warmth tends to make a globe out of an atom; cold, to reduce a globe to the dimensions of an atom. Analysis has been to ...
— Amiel's Journal • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... Solomon's new-born friendship severely if he could have heard Mr. Balfour dilate upon this topic, which he did with such earnestness and fervor that the lad was soon convinced of those great expectations which the cautious reticence of his parents had so long concealed from him. On the ...
— Bred in the Bone • James Payn

... not long waiting, however. Her eyes began to dilate and her face to glow; she was almost a worshiper of eloquence, and surely no one ever sat for two hours and listened to a more unbroken flow of rich, glowing words, shining like diamonds, than fell lavishly around the listeners that Friday ...
— Four Girls at Chautauqua • Pansy

... his hair. "But isn't that an inspiration to you, sir?" he exclaimed. "Does not your heart dilate at the thought of uplifting the condition of ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton

... Judge, in triumph move To take possession of their thrones above; Satan's accurs'd desertion to supply, And fill the vacant stations of the sky; Again to kindle long-extinguish'd rays, And with new lights dilate the heavenly blaze; To crop the roses of immortal youth, And drink the fountain-head of sacred truth To swim in seas of bliss, to strike the string, And lift the voice to their Almighty King; To lose eternity in grateful ...
— The Poetical Works of Edward Young, Volume 2 • Edward Young

... Crawley said very gravely, looking neither to the right nor to the left nor at the face of any of them, nor at his own garment, nor at hers, but straight before him; and when he had so spoken he said not a word further,—not going on to dilate on his poverty as the dean ...
— The Last Chronicle of Barset • Anthony Trollope

... thankful joy, Sure that the god would save the boy. She found a lotus by the stream; She plucked it from its noonday dream, And then from door to door she fared, To ask what house by Death was spared. Her heart grew cold to see the eyes Of all dilate with slow surprise: "Kilvani, thou hast lost thy head; Nothing can help a child that's dead. There stands not by the Ganges' side A house where none hath ever died." Thus, through the long and weary day, From ...
— Pike County Ballads and Other Poems • John Hay

... dilate in anger as I gazed, astounded, at this incarnation of mediocrity who had dared to affront me on my own hearth; and by virtue of my youth and my beauty, and all the homage I had received, and the clear sincerity of my vision of life, I despised and detested ...
— Sacred And Profane Love • E. Arnold Bennett

... Tuesday or Wednesday after, if I recollect right, that I saw another, and a still more awful sight. Along the north side of Queen Square, in front of ruins which had been three days before noble buildings, lay a ghastly row, not of corpses, but of corpse-fragments. I have no more wish than you to dilate upon that sight. But there was one charred fragment—with a scrap of old red petticoat adhering to it, which I never forgot- -which I trust in God that I never shall forget. It is good for a man to be brought once at least in his ...
— Sanitary and Social Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley

... living flesh will be still bright—if dead, it will be tarnished by oxydation. 6. A few drops of a solution of atropia (two grains to one-half ounce of water) introduced into the eye, if the person is alive, will cause the pupils to dilate—if dead, no effect will be produced. 7. If the pupil is already dilated, and the person is alive, a few drops of tincture of the calabar bean will cause it to contract—if dead, no effect will ...
— Burroughs' Encyclopaedia of Astounding Facts and Useful Information, 1889 • Barkham Burroughs

... though not with nearly all his simplicity, the poem of Dante manifests a peculiar intensity of subjective feeling which was foreign to the age of Homer, as indeed to all pre-Christian antiquity. But concerning this we need not dilate, as it has often been duly remarked upon, and notably by Carlyle, in his "Lectures on Hero-Worship." Who that has once heard the wail of unutterable ...
— The Unseen World and Other Essays • John Fiske

... sunshine in which she sat. The brute's rusty red head, so lit, fascinated Dick, and the mingled rhythms of her purring and the wizard's mounted and mounted, until to his bewildered mind the whole world seemed filled with their murmur, and the demoniac head seemed to dilate as he gazed at it. Suddenly, Rufus paused in his sing-song, and the cat's purr ceased with it, as though her share of ...
— Julia And Her Romeo: A Chronicle Of Castle Barfield - From "Schwartz" by David Christie Murray • David Christie Murray

... outside the gates of Whitehall felt their breasts dilate, and their pulses dance, as they listened to the flourishes of the trumpets and cornets, the thundering bruit of the kettle-drums, and other martial music that proclaimed the setting forth of the steel-clad champions who were presently to ...
— The Star-Chamber, Volume 2 - An Historical Romance • W. Harrison Ainsworth

... incompetent to any character of consequence: those which were vouchsafed him were of so inferior a rank that they denied scope to the exercise of his yet latent powers; for such a genius as that of Cooper could no more dilate in a meagre character, than Eclipse or Flying Childers could lay themselves out at full speed in a city building lot; and it is reasonable to suppose that, notwithstanding all his fortitude, the spirits of the youth were depressed, and his faculties chilled by such humiliating neglect, and ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Volume I, Number 1 • Stephen Cullen Carpenter

... and significant. And it is strange to see the Englishwomen, as they dance with the peasants transfigured with a kind of brilliant surprise. All the while the peasants are very courteous, but quiet. They see the women dilate and flash, they think they have found a footing, they are certain. So the male dancers are quiet, but even grandiloquent, their feet nimble, their ...
— Twilight in Italy • D.H. Lawrence

... they are appropriated, to prevent their misapplication or embezzlement by those intrusted with the expenditure of them, and generally to increase the security of the Government against losses in their disbursement. It is needless to dilate on the importance of providing such new safeguards as are within the power of legislation to promote these ends, and I have little to add to the recommendations submitted in ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Martin van Buren • Martin van Buren

... proceeded to dilate upon the activities and achievements of Dr. Fiddler. There had been broken arms and prodigious bruises, cuts and gashes of every conceivable character, and in every instance Dr. Fiddler had performed with heroic fidelity. In the middle of a particularly enthusiastic ...
— Mr. Bingle • George Barr McCutcheon

... happy. diente m. tooth. diez ten. diferenciar to differentiate. dificultad f. difficulty. difunto dead. digerir to digest. dignarse to deign, condescend. dignidad f. dignity. digno worthy. dilatar to dilate, spread out. diligencia business, stagecoach. diminuto small. dineral large sum of money. dinero money. dios, -a god, goddess. diputado deputy, representative. dirigir to direct, address; ...
— Novelas Cortas • Pedro Antonio de Alarcon

... The mouth was delicate and sensitive, the corners frequently curved into a smile. The change of expression in the eyes when playing, or stirred by any deep emotion, was most striking; 'they would dilate and become nearly twice their ordinary size, the brown pupil changing to a vivid black.' His lithe, muscular frame showed expression in all its movements corresponding with the actions of the mind; when he thoroughly ...
— Story-Lives of Great Musicians • Francis Jameson Rowbotham

... Tresten, and was talking to himself, cheating' himself, not discordantly at all. The poet of the company within him claimed the word and was allowed by the others to dilate on Clotilde's likings, and the honeymoon or post-honeymoon amusements to be provided for her in Pyrenean valleys, and Parisian theatres and salons. She was friande of chocolates, bon-bons: she enjoyed fine pastry, had a real relish of good wine. She should have ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith



Words linked to "Dilate" :   widen, dilator, clear up, particularize, specify, specialize, illustrate, particularise, detail, clarify, instance, contract, exemplify, set forth, elucidate, dilatation, dilation, specialise



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